colorful
AmericanUsage
What does colorful mean? Colorful literally means full of color, especially a lot of different bright colors.It can also be used in a figurative way to mean rich with interesting or vividly depicted elements, such as characters or events.For example, a colorful story is one with a lot of interesting parts, locations, and especially colorful characters—people with unique (or eccentric) personalities and ways of life.A place like a restaurant or nightclub might be said to have a colorful history, meaning a lot of very interesting or unusual things have happened there.The phrase colorful language is a euphemism—it’s a polite way of referring to language that contains a lot of curse words, obscenities, or other potentially offensive terms. Colorful is sometimes used in this way in other situations as a euphemistic or humorous way of implying that something is a bit seedy, shady, or outside the mainstream, as in That place is known to have a colorful clientele, if you know what I mean—a lot of shady deals go down there. Example: The history of the museum is as colorful as the paintings that hang on its walls—it has seen some truly bizarre happenings over the years.
Other Word Forms
- colorfully adverb
- colorfulness noun
- uncolorful adjective
Etymology
Origin of colorful
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Times Plants newsletter will receive Jeanette’s Mix, a special packet of colorful sunflower seeds and California poppies that Marantos hoped to offer this year.
From Los Angeles Times
Kid Cudi is lounging in a colorful attic much like the one in his childhood home in Cleveland.
From Los Angeles Times
Set in downtown LA, it’s an eclectic, colorful boutique hotel with vintage brick details and excellent service.
From Salon
A welter of memoirs and biographies have traced their colorful lives as well as their relationships with one another and with their hot-tempered father, David.
In late 2020, the company ran a colorful ad in the New York Times claiming the future of energy “may come from where you least expect it.”
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
